Fall of the American Empire?

Folks,

Doug Clark, in his superb Blog The Itenerant Pedant, recently asks/states, "But what about 'Checks and Balances'?" I hear you say. Let's look at the "checks" to unfettered Executive power. The Supreme Court? Yeah, maybe, except that we'll probably have colonies on Mars before that collection of egos first hears and then rules on any cases of Executive abuse. If they decide to punt it back to a Circuit Court first because the original ruling was missing a dotted "i" we could be looking at Alpha Centauri before there's a ruling. The Executive branch can do something tomorrow, the Judicial branch takes forever. The court is not capable of being a check on the Executive because the repair takes too long.

Congress. Yeah. Congress wields the "Power Of The Purse". And that, my friends, is ALL Congress wields. Subpoena? Not if the Justice Department doesn't want to enforce it, as they have refused to do on a Contempt Of Congress cite on Karl Rove. Testimony? Oversight? Not likely. (See above, Rove, Karl, Asshole, One Each)"

You pose an interesting question, Doug.

Who are the stakeholders here?

Our legislators, faced with a choice of either providing honest leadership or getting re-elected, are unwilling to get between a porcine and apathetic constituency of the individual citizen and the trough of unrestrained consumerism which seems to pass for the “pursuit of happiness” these days. For many, if not most politicians on both sides of the aisle, loyalty to the party comes first, and then loyalty to the constitution.

The capacity of the corporate citizenship to fund, influence and direct public matters through the legislative “farm system” is without question; and the corporate loyalty lies not necessarily with its countries’ constitution, but with its own self preservation and aggrandizement, to the delight of its majority shareholders, often multinational interests.

As you point out, any action taken by the Judicial Branch occurs long after the damage to our national fabric is done, and even then it takes blood in the streets, or the threat of it, to force the judicial inertia out of its natural inclination to preserve the status quo and do the right thing with respect to our unalienable rights.

Add to this mix the Religious Right, the American version of mullahs and ayatollahs, who disdain the logical and scientific approaches to our problems because those approaches contradict their emotional interpretations of mythical, apocryphal and misquoted scriptural texts, while ignoring the texts’ central messages of love and charity and nonviolence.

This leaves us with the aforementioned constituency of the individual citizen. As Joseph de Maistre said, and Thomas Jefferson amplified, “Every country has the government it deserves.” We have already foolishly subrogated out of largely manufactured and irrational fear many of our constitutional rights through the FISA and Patriot Acts in an effort to enhance our national security. Benjamin Franklin warned, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

It may be that we are travelling down the same path as great societies before us: corpulent and complacent, believing our own press releases of infallibility, destiny, and some deity’s love of our nation over the rest of his children. It seems that our American Neros provide us with 7-11 stores well stocked with sweets and tabloid titillations of Paris and Brittany and Brett, of sports steroids and politicians’ sexual escapades, much in the way the Roman emperors provided bread and the Circus Maximus. Just as our Roman ancestors, we risk being distracted as the plutocrats enrich their coffers while allowing the strength of the nation to decline and the barbarians gather at the gates.

Without a renewed sense of purpose by the individual citizen, a sense of the common good before the wealth of the individual, we cannot turn the scoundrels out of office and reclaim the goodness and pride of a nation striving to live up the highest ethical standards. It will take a sea change to really get things moving in a different direction, and as pessimistic as it sounds, I think it will require a national crisis, or two, to precipitate. The best that we can hope for in the short run is to elect a succession of Executives that refuse to continue to trample the Constitution and have an opportunity to seat some Supremes with an enlightened sense of restoring the balance of power.

Your Pal, and Doin’ the Left Thing